


Across

by RoseCathy



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Alternate Universe, First Time, Fluff, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-10 11:35:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3288902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseCathy/pseuds/RoseCathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lister works on the Space Corps test base on Mimas, which has specialised for years in interdimensional travel and reconnaissance. Occasionally, their ace pilot comes across a Red Dwarf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Holly was alone.

This was not a revelation. He had been alone for the past three million years, carrying out the same tasks every day. Drive Red Dwarf. Check that nothing was set to explode. Treat the skutters as his personal entertainment troupe. Read. Occasionally he tried variations, like trying to learn how to speed-read. What a silly idea that turned out to be; he preferred to peruse a book word by word, or sometimes l e t t e r b y l e t t e r if he felt in the mood.

One day, the notification pinged to tell him that the ship was finally safe for humans again. He rejoiced. No, that was a lie. He’d forgotten about the big day, having wrestled with too many philosophical crises about what he was and whether he enjoyed his own company too much, assuming that his mind was an actual entity that actually, truly existed.

It only took him one crisis to decide against further solitude.

\------

“Pass me the logbook, will you, Lister?” 

Lister indulged in a tiny sigh as he passed up another opportunity to take the piss.

Arnold Rimmer thought of himself as a man not to be trifled with. The truth, which Lister had guessed on the day they’d met, was that he was insecure in the extreme, and that ordering someone around (which he was technically entitled to do in this case) was the only outlet he had for his disappointment in himself. After Lister had given up pretending to mishear his every instruction, he’d started to smile, not smirk, once a day.

Lister watched that day’s smile from under the brim of his hat and chuckled to himself.

  


In many ways, Mimas Test Base was like something out of a dream. The projects were cutting-edge and overall employee morale was high, which could not be said of many other Space Corps sites in any known dimension. Lister had worked hard to get where he was — spacecraft technician, decent pay, quarters shared with his best friend — and he did appreciate it all, but he couldn’t explain the restlessness that tugged at his heart when he had a moment to himself.

Kristine called it wanderlust. She certainly had it, as evidenced by her career, so perhaps her judgement could be trusted. Lister wasn’t sure. He was a dreamer; he sometimes dreamt of a peaceful farm on an island (or, as some uncharitably put it, had his head in the clouds), not of a multitude of destinations.

“Welcome back!” he sang out in the direction of her bed. “How was your - ooh! Sorry!”

A skinny young man he’d never seen before ( _new recruit, then_ ) was scrambling to cover himself with the sleeve of a gold flight suit. “You said he wouldn’t be back until four!” he squeaked.

Lister turned his face away at a courteous angle and cackled quietly. “Sorry, man. I finished early.” He couldn’t resist adding as he left, “I hope that won’t be a problem for you, though!”

  


“So? Who was he?”

Kochanski raised one eyebrow at Lister through his little cloud of cigarette smoke. He grinned back at her. “You know, the charming fella who was expecting me at four.”

“Your timing is impeccable.”

“No need to tell me, Ace,” he sniggered. “Where’d you pick him up?” 

Her face relaxed into the smile that made so many of their colleagues (and Lister, once upon a time) weak in the knees. “His name’s Captain Lee. I met him a few months ago — you know, at InterCon, and now he’s transferred in from the academy. So keen on research, bless him.”

“ _Very_ keen, it looked like.”

“Excuse me,” interrupted a haughty voice. “Could you possibly let me through? Some of us have more urgent concerns than your sordid personal lives.”

Lister tipped his head back and blew out a tidy white plume. “Sure, man,” he purred, shifting his chair to open a path. As usual, Rimmer appeared oblivious to his softened voice and appreciative once-over.

He turned back to Ace and mimed along to her inevitable question: “What do you see in that guy?” He’d asked himself that more often than she had and never arrived at a satisfactory answer. It wasn’t difficult to come up with a list: the shades of green in Rimmer’s eyes; the tantalising way his hair sneaked out of its neat side parting, curl by curl, over the course of a shift; the hands that would feel fantastic on Lister’s body; and above all the slightly lost look he had, like he was waiting for something or someone.

None of this explained the depth of Lister’s infatuation. It wasn’t as though he was short of options; in addition to his own charm, his brief fling and continued close friendship with Ace made him intriguing to a host of people, or more precisely people with whom he wasn’t inexplicably in love.

Whenever he said _in love_ , people reminded him that he and Rimmer 1. had known each other for mere months and 2. rarely spoke outside of work. His only response was a rueful shrug — _what can I say?_ He was a romantic through and through.

\------

Kochanski removed her helmet and shook out her honey-coloured hair.

This Red Dwarf was older than the two others she’d seen before. Functioning, clean, yet the whole ship appeared tired, inside and out. It was also, she realised as she walked up the steps, apparently deserted except for the mechanoid who’d given her clearance to land.

“Hello?” she called. “Anybody home?”

“OOOOWWWWW! Wheeee!” A purple-and-gold blur flew across her vision, straight off the railing beside her, and onto the floor. She stared; the man had landed on his feet, unscathed, off a six-foot drop. By rights, she should have been the one squinting quizzically.

“Officer Bud-Babe?”

 _Bud-Babe?_ Ace put her questions aside and squared her shoulders. “The name’s Commander Kochanski. Kristine Kochanski. Friends call me - ”

“So it _is_ you!” The strange man’s face broke into a wide grin, showing a set of blindingly white teeth with overlong canines. “Nice threads! I was beginning to think you were hopeless. Hey, where’d this ship come from?”

“Miss Kochanski, ma’am?” It was the mechanoid, a Series 4000.

“Please call me Ace, Kryten.”

“Miss Ace,” he amended. “Welcome.”

Although Ace shook hands with her customary smoothness, she was rattled by what she had seen so far. “It’s a pleasure,” she said brightly. “And who’s this handsome gentleman?”

“Ah. This is Mr Cat, ma’am. Mr Cat, this is a version of Miss Kochanski from an alternate dimension.”

 _A **cat**?_ “Lovely to meet you, Cat. Call me Ace.”

Cat looked from Kryten to Ace, then back to Kryten, then back again. “So hang on a second. If you’re Kochanski, then who’s Officer B.B.?”

“That’s his nickname for our Miss Kochanski, ma’am,” Kryten told her in a whisper. Ah. That made slightly more sense. She was bursting with curiosity ( _How? When? What proportion of man to cat?_ ), but explanations could wait; now was the time to find her counterpart and her crewmates, if there were any more. “Kryten, could you be a darling and introduce me to the rest of the crew?”

At the “darling”, Kryten inclined his head and did a very good impression of blushing. “Certainly, ma’am.”

\------

“You’ll love this, Dave.”

“I hope so.” Lister sat down opposite Ace and opened a can of lager.

She adopted a professorial tone which belied what this was — an unloading of interdimensional gossip. “As you may have heard this morning, Wildfire took me to a Red Dwarf. This is the third so far, and the furthest from our reality.”

“Yeah, I heard.” Lister had shuddered at the thought of a spaceship lost in deep space, three million years from their present (How was it Wildfire could traverse time, anyway? He’d never been clear on the science) with a skeleton crew.

“The crew consisted of another me, of course, and a Series 4000 mechanoid, a super-evolved humanoid cat - ”

“A what?”

“I’ll explain later, it’s a long story. And…” She pulled a polaroid from her front pocket with a little flourish. “These two.”

It took Lister several blinks to understand what he was seeing. The photo showed two men sat at a table over drinks, much like he and Ace were now. One of them had curly grey hair and was vaguely familiar; the other was - 

“It’s me!” he exclaimed. “And Rimmer? They’re old! _I’m_ old!”

“Well, yes. The other you had just had his 48th birthday, so that puts the other Rimmer in his early 50s.”

“Forty-eight?! Smegging hell!” Lister doubled over with hysterical giggles. Forty-eight. _Forty-eight._ Lines around the eyes and mouth, white at the temples. “Oh, man, this is just _wrong._ Hey, is that a scar on his face or a really smegging deep wrinkle?”

“Listen, I know it’s weird, but there’s something that might be more important to you. Focus.”

Lister exhaled slowly to calm himself ( _Smeg, Rimmer’s losing his hair. Still looks good, though._ ) and did as she said. He hadn’t given much thought to the way they seemed to be staring into each other’s faces or to their serene expressions. Eventually, his eyes settled on where the other Lister’s right hand was obscured by a couple of beer cans. With his finger, he traced the angle of first one arm, then another jutting out from the same spot.

“They’re holding hands.”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

 _Wow._ “Well, does that mean…were they, you know - ”

“They’re in love, Dave,” Ace said softly. “Madly in love. They’ve been together for over twenty years, they said.”

“Wow.”

“I mean, it was obvious before they told me. Besides, this Rimmer was…” She took a sip of her beer, evidently trying to think of the right adjective. “He was quite miffed at me getting on so well with his Lister.”

“Yeah?” That was good, wasn’t it? If Rimmer was jealous of the easy friendship between Kochanski and Lister, which had sprung up in every universe she’d visited thus far, it must be because Lister meant a lot to him — the _other_ Lister did. The other Lister meant a lot to the other Rimmer. Nonetheless…

On one of Kochanski’s previous trips, Wildfire had jumped to another Mimas Test Base. Her counterpart there was neither a test pilot nor romantically involved with Dave Lister, whereas for the handful of alternates she’d met up to that point, at least one of those things had been true. This one, however, was a happily single navigation specialist. Even more surprisingly, the base’s star test pilot, also nicknamed Ace, was a version of Arnold Rimmer.

Then there was Spanners. He was a more bookish Lister, an engineer with close-cropped hair and glasses and a neat moustache. Lister had fallen about laughing at the photo of this counterpart, only to sober up when Kochanski told him what she’d seen: Ace Rimmer and Spanners stealing a romantic moment in an alcove.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” she’d admitted cheerfully. “To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t see you and Rimmer working out for the best in any universe. Those two proved me wrong.”

Lister had been uncharacteristically pessimistic. “Yeah, but they’re not us, are they? Rimmer’s this - well, he’s like you, and Lister’s all tidy and smart. Match made in heaven, innit?”

It was different this time; the pair in the photo were definitely not Ace Rimmer and Spanners. Lister cleared this throat. “So…what are they like? And what about this human cat thingy?”

“Oh, it’s a _very_ long story, actually…”

\------

Three million years later and an untold number of dimensions over, Rimmer lay sprawled atop Lister and willed his breath to return. Not for the first time, he pondered whether he was getting too old for this sort of thing, only to abandon that line of thought as soon as he felt the pads of Lister’s fingers caressing his scalp.

“Geroffme. Can’t breathe.”

“Oh, _fine_.” He put on his usual brief show of petulance before he rolled off. In one practised movement, he landed on his side and pulled Lister along so they were facing each other. “Is that better?”

“No, smeghead, you’re still all over me,” Lister teased. He covered Rimmer’s hand, which had come to rest over his heart, with his own and held it there.

They kissed languidly, secure in the knowledge that there was nowhere either of them would rather be. When they lay like this, it was - not exactly easy, but not a chore to forget about the echoing corridors surrounding their little love nest, which in turn were surrounded by the cold emptiness outside.

“Hey, d’you think she’ll be back soon like she said?”

“Who?”

“Ace.”

“Oh, Ace.” Rimmer shrugged. “I wouldn’t count on it. She’s clearly very busy with all this dimension jumping. Maybe a few years from now, if she thinks of us, she’ll pop back for some tea and biscuits. Assuming we’ve still got biscuits by then.”

Lister regarded him suspiciously. Was there a smirk forming at one corner of Rimmer’s mouth? Yes, yes, there was — a small one, just this side of undetectable. “This again,” he sighed. “How many times do I have to tell you? There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Mm,” was all Rimmer would say.

Lister soon gave up trying to be stern and brought Rimmer in close for more kissing. Though it felt like a losing battle at times, papering over his lover’s neuroses, it didn’t bother him. Rimmer had been made for him, really, and he for Rimmer. It never took him more than one sleepy “I love you” whispered against his lips to remember.

\------

Lister peered critically at his reflection. Overalls clean, eyes well-rested and sparkling. Good. Today was the day he would stop acting like a kid; today was the day for _carpe diem_ and all that smeg. If his other self could be marooned in deepest space with his Rimmer and still be as happy as Ace had described, he and this universe’s Rimmer had to have a fighting chance.

This universe’s Rimmer had preceded him to their small office/work cupboard, as always, and was running a hand back and forth through his increasingly wild curls, engrossed in the day’s list of tasks. Lister leaned against the doorframe; he’d steal a little moment here to watch and daydream, just a few seconds - 

“I hope you’re not planning to stand there all day, Lister,” Rimmer’s brisk voice cut across his thoughts. “Lots to do today.”

The printout in his hand was five pages long. “For smeg’s sake,” Lister muttered under his breath. Chances were that Rimmer would be too preoccupied to talk about any non-work topic.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.”

Rimmer continued to look askance at him as he palmed the door closed and walked over to the join between their desks to read the printout: _Saturn Shuttle 11: All parachutes — check cords. Passenger seat — replace height adjustment lever…_

An ear-splitting screech made them both jump. “What - ” Lister began, but he fell silent as the room went pitch black.

  


Their normally cosy office was eerie and oppressive in the dull light of the emergency lantern. It had even sprouted a few phantom cobwebs, and the way they grew and shrank with Rimmer’s frustrated pacing had Lister on the verge of vomiting.

“Rimmer, could you not…” he managed to croak after several abortive attempts to speak. “Could you not do that?”

“What?”

“The walking, and the arms and…it’s doing my head in.” Without waiting for a response, Lister curled into something resembling a crash position. It had been so long since his claustrophobia had had the opportunity to rear its ugly head that he’d forgotten what it was like — the nausea, the shivering as if he’d been dropped at the North Pole, not to mention the irrational thoughts. Intellectually, he knew his condition was nothing to be ashamed of; right now, he was sure it was making him seem totally useless and undesirable. Never mind _carpe diem;_ they might die here.

He didn’t open his eyes until Rimmer sat down next to him and pushed a square pouch at him. “What’s that?”

“Thermal blanket. You’re shivering,” Rimmer replied gruffly, as though embarrassed to be caught doing something nice.

“Cheers, man.”

The blanket was big enough for two people, Lister noticed. It was unfortunate that he was too much of a mess at the moment to make any cheeky overtures about sharing it. Oh, why hadn’t someone at least got the door open? Did anybody care that he and Rimmer were entombed in their laughably tiny so-called office? Did anybody know? _Smegging useless…_ he pulled the blanket over his head, all dignity abandoned, and tried to take his mind off their predicament.

_There was that time at the orphanage. Went on for ages and ages. Some smegger had pawed through my stuff while the lights were out. Not that I had anything worth stealing. He’d tossed my photos on the floor. Frames broken, glass everywhere. Bastard!_

“When I was seven,” Rimmer said suddenly, “my brothers shut me in a wardrobe.”

Lister looked up in surprise. Had he reminisced out loud about the orphanage? He hadn’t meant to.

“I must have been in there for - I don’t know, maybe four hours. Then my mother found me and gave me a good telling-off.”

“Eh?”

“She needed something from the wardrobe, except there was a veritable tower of chairs blocking the door, you see. And when she got it open, there I was asleep on a pile of her favourite silk scarves. They were all crumpled, I’d given her such a fright, and so on. Ergo, no dinner for Arnie.”

“That’s horrible.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rimmer mumbled. Lister saw something of the frightened little boy in his downcast face and felt a rush of sympathy. He’d never spoken of his childhood in such hideous detail before. Smeg, he looked so pretty even in the awful lighting, so pretty and so sad. When was the last time he’d been properly…anything? Hugged, kissed, shown any sort of affection?

The blanket crackled and shifted for no reason that Lister could think of.

When he came back to himself, it was draped over both of them. Although he couldn’t be certain, he had the impression that his arms were wound about Rimmer’s neck and that their foreheads were together. _What happened?_ he wanted to ask, but his subconscious told him it was unimportant. Far higher on the list of priorities was moving closer to Rimmer…

“Hello?”

…breathing in his aftershave…

_Bang, bang, bang._

Lister blinked.

 _Bang, bang, bang._ “Lister? Rimmer?”

He could have sworn that their lips had touched before Rimmer quickly shed his half of the blanket and moved away.

“Sit tight, lads, we’re ready to restart this sector,” Selby’s voice shouted through the door. “Chen, you ready?”

“Ready!”

“Three, two, one - ”

The lights and assorted machinery whirred back to life. Lister found himself first temporarily blinded, then staring at Selby’s outstretched hand. “All right, Davey-Boy?”

“I - yeah, fine. Good.” He hoisted himself up and looked around stupidly at the people milling about. Where was Rimmer? Had he been hallucinating?

“You look peaky, Dave.” He felt a blissfully cool, smooth hand on his forehead. Kochanski’s. “I’ll walk you home. Today’s a bit of a lost cause anyhow.”

He knew it would be no use to pretend he wasn’t shaken; she knew him too well. Hoping against hope, he scanned the room once more, just in time to see Rimmer straightening up. Good. He hadn’t fantasised _everything_ , then.

“I’ll be right back, okay? I just need to speak to Bongo for a moment.”

“Okay.”

He listened to the others’ footsteps fading away, leaving them alone again. Just the two of them, gazes locked, and possibly moving closer? Yes, he’d thought so. The scent of aftershave filling his nostrils again proved him right. It also — in conjunction with the heat on his face and the tongue in his mouth — suggested that they really were kissing this time. Soft curls between his fingers, tentative hands on the sides of his face. He raised himself up on his toes and pressed harder, deeper. He wanted more of this, so much more.

A loud _clang_ sounded from nearby, startling them both, and teeth sank cruelly into his lower lip. By the time he’d put his hand up to the wound and opened his eyes, Rimmer had vanished.

He forgot all about waiting for Kristine.

He somehow found his way back to his quarters. Sat back in his bunk and yanked his trousers open. Stroked himself to the residual warmth and sting on his mouth. Bit down hard on his lip to prolong the sensations and moaned as he imagined Rimmer’s mouth teasing at his cock, then opening, stretching around the head and more as he thrust up mercilessly, its groans travelling along his shaft as he pumped it full of…

He let his head flop back onto his pillow and exhaled. Closed his eyes and counted his own heartbeats, which were still coming hard and fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of Ace Kochanski is not mine. Check out [gingertime’s](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1255639/chapters/2584957) and [Kahvi/Roadstergal’s](http://archiveofourown.org/works/504666/chapters/887319) fics!


	2. Chapter 2

“Good morning, Lister.”

Lister raised his eyebrows. “The very same to you,” he replied, mirroring Rimmer’s exaggerated politeness.

Rimmer’s face showed no signs of acknowledging the previous day’s events. No flash in the eyes, no quirk of the mouth. Yet here they were, both a full twenty-five minutes early for work as though they’d arranged to meet up, Lister thought. If ever there was a good time to take a chance…he stepped forward. _Carpe diem._

All at once, he felt hands clasping his upper arms and lips soft and tentative on his neck. _Yes._ Those lips slowly moved up to his jaw, then across his face — _yes_ — and he decided he didn’t want to wait any longer. One quick turn of his head was all it would take to express how much he (they, he hoped) had ached for this.

He let out a little squeal as he was kissed hard, and he reached out with both arms, seeking more contact. Instead of wrapping tightly around Rimmer, they met air; only his hands managed to land on - a chest, it appeared, and they weren’t kissing anymore.

“I wish you wouldn’t smoke.”

“You what?” he said blankly.

“I wish you wouldn’t smoke,” Rimmer repeated. So he wasn’t opposed to what they were doing; he’d just run into an obstacle. Emboldened by relief, Lister pulled him into a bear hug and giggled into his shoulder.

“It’s absolutely vile,” he grumbled. “Every time I run into you outside work you’re sucking on a cigarette - ”

“It helps me relax.”

“ - practically making love to it, and you blow toxic fumes right in my face - ”

“I don’t mean to! I just try and stand close.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to notice me.” That had come out more plea-like than Lister had intended. He looked up hesitantly. Swollen lips, flushed cheeks, eyes he could lose himself in for hours if Rimmer would let him. Who could blame him for pleading?

“I would have noticed you without it.”

It was safe to say that Rimmer would let him, at least until their shift started.

  


“I have a question,” Rimmer said stiffly as they carried out their end-of-day routine.

“Mm?”

“You and Kochanski.”

Lister sighed; he could guess what Rimmer was driving at. “She’s my best friend. And we had a thing once, you know that.”

“Is that all?”

“Well…we share a room. We share most of our lives, really.”

Rimmer’s face fell. “Right. So you’ve - you have.”

“A few times since we split up,” Lister admitted. “Not in ages, though. Not since I met you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“What?”

“Why would you give up someone like her for someone like me? It’s totally absurd.”

“Well, I - ”

“What is this, anyway? Have you ever - with a man before?”

“A couple, but that’s - ”

“I mean, what are we doing, Lister?” Rimmer’s voice rose an octave with each question. “What am _I_ doing? What are your intentions?”

 _To live happily ever after with you on my little farm on Fiji?_ The image made Lister smile, as much out of amusement as anything else. Somehow he didn’t think Rimmer would be eager to settle down on his vaguely sketched-out dream farm. “It’s a bit late for that now, man,” he teased. “I think I’ve made my intentions pretty smegging clear.”

“Hmph.”

“And so have you.”

Rimmer shook his head in despair. “I’ve never done anything like this,” he protested to the floor. “This is entirely, one hundred per cent your fault.”

  


The sleeping quarters were dark save for the gilded lamp on the table — one of Ace’s acquisitions from the previous year’s holiday on Earth. Its glow softened the bright white paint and sharp angles, made the place less Space Corps and more like a room you could make love in. Lister knew he was getting ahead of himself, but he couldn’t help his breath catching as he imagined everything that could happen here.

Despite his earlier outburst, Rimmer didn’t find it difficult to follow Lister inside or to snuggle down with him under many layers of bedding, topped as it was with a threadbare blanket nicked from the Titan Hilton. It was true that he’d never done anything like this. A few furtive encounters were all he’d had, and none of the women had been eager to repeat the experience. He supposed it was because he was rubbish at everything, including snogging and the little sexual activity for which he’d mustered the courage.

Either Lister didn’t think he was rubbish at everything, the fool, or realised he was and still wanted him, the fool. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a warm, solid body in his arms (When was the last time he’d held someone like this? Had he ever?) or hands playing with his hair and tracing the lines of his face with great concentration.

The kiss he initiated was meant as a temporary cover for his embarrassment. Lister threw himself into it, however, and he began to feel intoxicated — simultaneously pliant and powerful as nimble fingers opened the front of his overalls.

\------

“Arnold, Dave,” Holly droned over his specially devised extra-shrill alarm, “time to wake up. We’ve got a visitor. Arnold, Dave, time to wake up…”

Rimmer hated being wrong. He also hated being woken up early except for certain specific purposes, and finding out he’d been wrong was not one of them.

It wasn’t that he had anything against her. He’d built a reasonable friendship with Kristine, their Kristine, over the years, but then he’d set a good precedent by greeting her arrival in his and Lister’s lives with only minimal hostility. Ace, though…Ace was different. Very different.

“It’s wonderful to see you all again,” she was saying, blowing a kiss to Holly. God, she was young. So young and confident, with that perfect hair and that gleaming suit. “Only a flying visit this time, I’m afraid.”

 _Good,_ Rimmer thought, then glanced guiltily at Lister in case it had shown on his face. It had, yet he received a hand-squeeze instead of reproach.

Yeah, he could handle this.

\------

“I’m sorry,” Rimmer muttered again.

“Wasn’t your fault, man.”

“Try not to talk, please,” the Medi-Bot singsonged as the claw attachment applied another stitch to Lister’s forehead.

Rimmer glared at the gormless face on the monitor while he secretly replayed the scene in his mind. The two of them nearly naked, covers thrown to the floor. Being asked if he’d ever thought of Lister while he…(the answer was _Yes, sometimes, how could I not, the way you ogle me, the way you kissed me yesterday?_ , though he only managed a nod) A strong hand on his erection. _“I think about you all the time, about touching you like this and more.”_ More? _“Yeah, more. We don’t have to, but…” “Tell me.”_

Lister climbing over him to rummage in his first-aid kit. An odd place to keep what he was looking for, or did it sort of make sense? A _crunch_ , a cry of pain, then blood, so much blood.

“That’ll leave a scar” was the extent of his bedside manner.

Lister shrugged amiably and held out his hand (Earlier it had been wrapped around and twisting - well, anyway). “I’ve seen worse.” So had Rimmer — on himself, long ago, when one of the mines in the sand pit had exploded. He pressed a kiss into the uninjured side.

There might have been titters or whispers in the corridors. He found that it didn’t matter…much. His face might have become a bit heated; he might have crushed Lister’s hand in a death grip. That was it.

\------

In truth, Ace had been almost as startled to see herself aged as Dave had been by that polaroid, but she’d made herself get used to it so that she could speak to Kristine without having an existential crisis. She wondered how many of the lines and grey hairs were due to the natural passage of time and how many were due to tragedy.

“I’m not unhappy,” Kristine mused. “I’m blessed really, considering I could have floated alone in deep space for the rest of my life. It’s only…it gets lonely. You said your Dave is your closest friend, and I suppose that’s true of me and my Dave as well, but I’ve always felt that he holds something back.”

Ace patted her hand sympathetically. “Because of Rimmer?”

“No, I mean – the pair of them are nauseating sometimes, make no mistake,” she laughed, then became sombre again. “It’s more than that, it’s as though…he wishes I were different, and he doesn’t want me to notice that. It’s hard to explain.”

“All right, Ace?” Holly’s impassive face appeared on the monitor. “Sorry for the delay. I was explaining my new interesting-dust-cataloguing system to Kryten.”

“No problem, Hol, this won’t take long. I’d just like to ask a few more questions.“

“Oh, well, if you need information, I’m your man. Would you be interested in my dramatic retelling of how I plucked Kristine from the edge of the dimensional rift?”

“Er, another time.” Ace turned to mime _I’m so sorry_ at her departing counterpart, who luckily didn’t seem to have paid attention. Holly’s computer senility was mostly harmless, she’d gathered, except it could make him very callous on occasion. He’d probably forgotten the circumstances that led to Kristine ending up at the rift. “Tell me more about the radiation leak, though. Where the problem originated, what could have prevented it…”

“Prevented it? That’s an easy one. Dave and Arnold.”

“Sorry?”

“Arnold was supposed to repair the drive plate, right, and Dave was supposed to help him. He was in the captain’s office because of his cat problem. One screw loose, no bugger to spot it, and boom, there was me left with no intelligent life forms to talk to.”

\------

Lister examined his face in Ace’s makeup mirror. Contrary to Rimmer’s dire predictions, the stitches looked intact. “See? Nothing to worry about. Now can we please get back to what we were doing?”

Rimmer stopped prodding the stinging mark on his neck and moved to let Lister kneel between his legs again. Even though rational thought was slipping farther and farther away from him, he tried to take mental notes for subsequent sessions, assuming there would be some. He hoped there would be at least one more; let it never be said that he didn’t revise, or that he was an inconsiderate lover, although the notion of him being anyone’s lover was odd indeed.

He groaned through tightly clenched teeth as his hips thrust upward of their own accord, burying his cock deeper in Lister’s mouth. His gorgeous, delicious mouth, which Rimmer had imagined doing precisely this, albeit in hazy fantasies. Now they were vivid: Sturdy hands on his thighs pinning him down so he couldn’t move as much, or perhaps being able to move _more_ , with a fistful of dreadlocks in one hand to hold Lister in place -

A sudden rush of cold air jolted him out of his delirium. “What?” he gasped.

Sparkling brown eyes. A hand tilting his face up. Lips brushing his nose, testing the waters. “Now would be a good time, if you haven’t changed your mind…” _About what? Ah. Right._ He did remember what they’d agreed on earlier. Was he being unduly influenced by Lister’s thumb gently stroking the underside of his shaft as if in anticipation? Would it emerge that he was rubbish at everything?

No, he hadn’t changed his mind.

He let Lister take the lead. Between trying not to go off too soon and watching in frank fascination as Lister sank down slowly on his cock, whimpering as he pushed past the head, then clawed at his flesh and fucked himself wantonly, his demands for _more, please, just more_ and the _slap slap slap_ of their skin getting louder by the second, Rimmer forgot to remind himself to enjoy the moment while it lasted, because surely it was impossible for something so good to happen more than once. By the time his brain registered why Lister’s body had gone rigid and why something wet and warm was spreading across his chest, it was too late.

He needn’t have worried, at least according to the sugary-sweet whisper in his ear, which he could barely hear over his own pulse. _“Next time, we can do it any way you want. You can hold me down, flip me over, anything. How’s that sound? Eh?”_

It sounded amazing, but his euphoria soon gave way to a strange sense of loss, and he began to wonder whether it had been an elaborate dream. He reached out with one hand, feeling for an anchor.

Lister took the hand and guided it to rest over his heart. It was still pounding.

  


_It doesn’t make sense._ The refrain echoed in Ace’s head throughout the meeting with Bongo and the walk back to her quarters. _It makes no sense whatsoever._

Why would the other Lister lie to her? Why would the other Rimmer, come to that? She hadn’t had the time or means to ascertain how much the others knew, although she suspected that Kristine had also been deceived.

Maybe it was silly to feel betrayed; these people were strangers, after all. But _why?_ Why should she care if the other Lister and Rimmer hadn’t been part of the original crew? Why the charade, especially since Holly was prone to blabbing?

“Hey! Welcome back!” Dave, her Dave, leapt out of bed and swept her into a hug the moment she walked through the door. She lingered for awhile, rubbing her face against his shoulder; as much as she loved her job, it was so good to be home, enveloped in warmth and away from confounding situations. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but I thought you weren’t due back till tomorrow.”

“Why, planning to bring someone home?” she teased. “Sorry, but _I_ plan to have an obscenely quiet night in, and I obscenely outrank you.”

To her surprise, Lister didn’t laugh. “The thing is,” he said sheepishly, “I’m not sure where else we could go.”

It was only then that she noticed Rimmer sitting up ramrod straight on Lister’s bed. His hair had forsaken neatness, his shirt was buttoned wrong and wrinkled, and his face was bonfire red. “Commander,” he squeaked.

Ace waved a hand. “Oh, don’t bother with that nonsense. Call me Ace, everyone does.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s not - look, never mind. You two can stay. I’m sure Captain Lee would be willing to accommodate me.”

“Accommodate?” Lister guffawed. “Is that what you call it?”

“Or I could always stay here, Dave.”

“Sorry, babe.” He gave her another hug. She could see over his shoulder that Rimmer was squirming. “And thank you.”

“I would say ‘any time’, except that couldn’t be farther from the truth.” _At least we’re always honest with each other_ , she thought fondly.

As she stepped into the bathroom, she overheard Dave ask Rimmer, “How does it feel to have a ‘sordid personal life’?”

“Shut up.”

\------

 _It had to happen._ The thought, while true, gave Lister very little comfort. So much of his life had been out of his control, dictated instead by events that simply _had to happen._ He wouldn’t be stuck on this smegging ship if not for those, for one thing.

He flopped onto his stomach and half-hid his face in his pillow. Kisses covered his forehead and temple; a hand moved down his back in firm, loving strokes. Rimmer wasn’t particularly nurturing, but Lister always ran to him when he needed to be cared for — odd, really.

“Listy?”

“What.”

“Make love to me.”

Then again, Rimmer knew how to take care of him.

“What if Kris comes by? She might want to talk about…stuff.”

“She came by earlier when you were in the shower, and I asked her to please stay the smeg away until dinnertime because I’ve got enough on my plate with you. As it were.”

Lister chuckled. “Go on, then.”

—-----

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Rimmer heard for what he was sure was the thousandth time. “There’s no rule that says you have to.”

He threw his head back and sighed. “Yes, _I know._ Like I said, I’m treating it as an experiment. And for the last time,” he added sternly, “it’s no use pretending _you_ don’t want to.”

 _Fair enough._ Lister carefully pushed another finger inside him, drawing a low groan. Good, good. It was probably inconsiderate to be stroking his own cock rather than Rimmer’s, but smeg, the sight and feel of this was just…he hadn’t anticipated it happening at this early stage, only weeks after they’d got together.

Despite his earlier words, Rimmer looked so vulnerable underneath him — eyes wide and teeth repeatedly attacking his lower lip. Lister tried to mute his own reactions so that Rimmer wouldn’t feel obligated to continue if it was too much, though the will to hold back was getting alarmingly weak.

The last of it began to evaporate when Rimmer pulled his knees up further to draw Lister deeper inside him. “Greedy bastard, aren’t you?” he managed to gasp, running a trembling hand through magnificently messy curls.

“I am,” Rimmer retorted just as breathlessly. “So indulge me.”

The barely-held guttural moan finally escaped from Lister’s mouth. He gripped Rimmer’s arms, hard, and drove into him again and again.

Their lips collided, trapping their helpless cries together. The world spun and seemed to break apart until there was nothing left except the two of them.

  


Bongo, as Admiral Sir James Tranter preferred to be known, was not someone Lister thought about. Ace interacted with him all the time, of course, but Lister had spoken to the man for a total of five minutes during his two years on the base, and he’d never been in this office before.

He and Rimmer kept glancing at each other uneasily. Ace, for some reason, had her eyes fixed on Captain Lee’s left foot.

“I’ve summoned you gentlemen today to,” Bongo began, then appeared to lose his nerve. “This is a delicate matter.”

“Sir,” Rimmer interrupted, startling everyone else, “If Lister and I have violated any of the Corps’ regulations concerning, er, fraternisation - ”

 _Shut up!_ Lister thought he exclaimed; in fact, he was gawping at Rimmer. He had only a dim recollection of the regulations, if there were any. Smeg, were they about to be sacked?

“No, no,” Bongo said kindly. “That’s nothing to do with the matter in hand.”

Rimmer’s cheeks burned scarlet. “I apologise, sir.”

“The matter in hand is that, that is…I can’t quite believe what I’m about to tell you, although there’s no reason why I shouldn’t.”

Lee shifted impatiently in his seat.

“We — meaning Captain Lee, Commander Kochanski, and I — have reason to believe that you will be abducted in the near future.”

Lister stared. “Abducted?”

“As in by aliens, sir?” Rimmer asked, earning a strange look from all except Lister, who merely rolled his eyes. A part of him (the completely cracked part) was excited at the prospect, Lister could tell.

“No,” Ace said quietly. “Not aliens. Sir, if I may?” Bongo nodded.

“You both know about the dimension where Red Dwarf is marooned in deep space. On my initial visit, I was given the impression the Lister and Rimmer I met there were the only survivors of the radiation leak aboard the ship, that they’d been part of the crew. On my second visit, I learned otherwise.”

“So?”

“The ship’s records showed that Third Technician Dave Lister and Second Technician Arnold Rimmer were killed in the accident along with the rest. Therefore, the Lister and Rimmer I met had to be from another dimension.” Ace took a deep breath, but her voice still wavered on the next part. “According to the investigation I carried out with Captain Lee, they were originally from this dimension.”

For a long, agonising moment, the only sound in the room was Bongo’s fingers drumming nervously on his desk.

“Are you having a laugh?” Lister blurted out after the implications had sunk in. He knew it was a ridiculous question. 

“No, Dave, I’m not.” Ace was no longer bothering to hide her tears. _Oh, no. **No.** Oh, Krissie._

“How?” Rimmer whispered. He looked terrified.

Lee cleared his throat. “This is what we’ve been able to determine,” he said gently, passing a folder to each of them. “It’s our view that even though Holly, that’s the ship’s computer, suffers from computer senility, he knew what he was doing in this instance. Or perhaps it _was_ the state he was in — he’d been virtually alone for three million years — that helped him do what he did.”

“Which is?”

“He constructed a crude dimension-hopping device with enough power to kidnap alternate versions of two of the crew to keep him company. He even thought to look for substantially different versions. Less likely to cause death, you see.”

Lister opened the folder and saw a polaroid of his other - his older self, smiling up at him. In the harsh lighting of the photo, the scar on his face shone like a sliver of sunlight.

—-----

Kristine cradled her head in her hands. The truth, at last. She cursed herself for not figuring it out sooner.

She was really too old now to ask if her life would ever settle down; the relative peace of the past five or so years was settled as it would get. Soon, she was going to leave home yet again. _Home._ This Red Dwarf, this dimension, home? Her youthful self never would have believed it.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know, Dave. I understand.”

They had had this exchange too many times.

“It won’t be long now,” Rimmer told her. “As I recall, there were ten days between the day…well, that day, and _that_ day.” _Hardly enough time to plan for a holiday, let alone for being kidnapped,_ he grumbled internally.

“Eleven, you smegger!” Lister corrected him. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”

The Cat yowled. “ _Two_ Officer B.B.s. How will I ever cope with so much loveliness around me?”

“Who says I’m ever going to be around you?” Kristine shot back. “I’ll be too busy meeting new people.”

“Just imagine,” Lister said dreamily. “Two of me, two of Rimmer. Could have happened, you know, if it hadn’t been for all the causality smeg. It would’ve been like having backups of ourselves.”

“Which one of them would have been truly _you_ , sir?” Kryten enquired from the kitchen area. “The hypothetical raises practical as well as philosophical questions. For instance, what if you and the two Mr Rimmers had got mixed up?”

“Mixed up? What do you - oh.” Rimmer grimaced. Lister nudged him. “I wouldn’t have minded two of you at once.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Yeah, I love you too.”

“Hello, everyone.”

The group fell silent. Ace was stood in the doorway, her helmet tucked under one arm.

She reached into an inner pocket and pulled out a card; it bore a stylised number 27. “Happy birthday, Dave.”


End file.
